Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice
by Harvester of Eyes
Summary: Since she doesn't turn to stone during the day, Demona sometimes has to sleep like humans do. What does she dream about while sleeping? Don't ask. Contains disturbing violence.


**Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice**

By Harvester of Eyes Mumbo-Jumbo: All the characters appearing in _Gargoyles _and _Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles_ are copyright Buena Vista Television/The Walt Disney Company. No infringement of these copyrights is intended, and is not authorized by the copyright holder. All original characters are the property of the author. This work is being distributed freely and without any financial gain whatsoever.

This is just a fun little throwaway story that came to me while I was brainstorming ideas for the next chapter in the "War is Hell" series. It doesn't have much bearing on my main saga and is just something I wrote for the hell of it, but as usual, I'm always open to feedback. Especially if it's evil.

Warning: This story is Rated R for some graphic and very disturbing torture and violence, and some brief nudity. If you're squeamish, then consider yourself warned.

It was a picture that both was and was not familiar. The impish character glanced up at the gargoyle, at whose feet he was chained, and then looked around the room in shock, wondering how he'd gotten there. Like last time, the gargoyle's attic was littered with a wide assortment of artifacts and antiquities acquired over a millennium of plotting. Like last time, they were heaped against the walls in no particular order or arrangement; as if the collector had gotten all the use they could from them, and had just been too busy to find the time to get rid of them. He also noticed a fireplace built into the wall behind him, and for a moment wondered when it had been added.

The one thing missing from last time was the silver-rimmed mirror that had brought him to his ungrateful host. The jerkin-clad figure wondered for a moment what had served as the vessel to bring him here yet again. He tried to scratch his head, which reminded him that his arms were bound, and so his attention brought him back to the gargoyle that towered over him.

The last time that Puck had knelt before Demona, wrapped in iron chains, he wore a look of slight annoyance. But now, confusion and just a little fear could clearly be seen around the edges of his eyes.

Demona had changed as well, and this time, she looked much happier. Puck glanced at the mace hooked to her belt, the curved knife in its leather sheath buckled around her thigh, and let out a small swallow. He knew why he was here. He also knew that he'd acquired a very unfortunate handicap since his last visit. And by the wicked gleam of mirth in her eyes as Demona slowly drew the knife, ran her tongue across the flat of the blade, Puck guessed that she probably knew it, too.

But it couldn't hurt to at least try and negotiate. "I see you still haven't acquired much of a sense of humor since our last romp together," he said breathlessly, with a shake of his head. "Such a pity. I had such hopes for you, back when I first hooked you up with my boss. You know, he isn't going to be too happy about this."

"He'll live," Demona replied as she absently twirled the knife, the light from the nearby fireplace catching on the blade. "You, on the other hand…"

"Now hang on," said Puck. "I have responsibilities. Surely you, with your recent venture into the world of business, can appreciate that. I mean, who will grind Xanatos's coffee beans, help him with his tax return? Tax season is already underway, you know. Who'll teach that charming little tyke of his about the wonderful world of magic?"

Demona scowled. "Xanatos and his spawn can rot in whatever hell they wish. Do you really think that after what you did to me, I'd just let you leave for their sakes? You're forgetting that human life means nothing to me."

The trickster spirit just couldn't resist showing itself, even in these dire circumstances. "Well, if that's the case, why not just take one of your little laser-guided toys to the next board meeting? Or better yet, just demolish the Nightstone building without telling any of the people inside first. I bet you'd just love to swing the wrecking ball yourself."

Demona's eyes flared for a moment. "It's a necessary evil that I do what I do. I didn't ask to be cursed by you, but my weak human form is still of some use in helping me to achieve my goals."

"Cursed you? Moi?" Puck looked genuinely hurt. "I seem to recall that you told me you didn't want to turn to stone during the day. Did I not give you what you asked for? I mean, if our little games taught you anything, it's that you should have been more specific. After all, I do exactly what is asked of me. Nothing more."

Demona sheathed the knife, and took several deep breaths as her eyes reverted to normal. "You're right," she pretended to concede.

Puck, lulled into a false sense of security, allowed his frame to sag. Just what Demona wanted. In a flash, her mace was in her hand, and she brought it down hard against the trickster's shoulder. Puck cried out in agony, more from the burning touch of the iron against his flesh than from the cracking of his collarbone.

He pitched forward, thrashing about like a landed fish. A bright flower of blood slowly began to sprout across the sleeve of his jerkin. "Hey, put yourself in my shoes!" He pleaded through clenched teeth. "One minute you're trying to catch up on your reading, and then suddenly there's a flash of white light, and poof! You're tied up in front of someone who refuses to let you go unless you jump through her hoops. Wouldn't you be annoyed?"

Demona pinned him beneath her foot, and for a moment, Puck went silent as her face took on a contemplative look. A leather-winged raptor choosing just the right point at which to strike.

"No, please…" Puck started to say as she raised the mace high, then quickly sucked in air right before it came whistling down upon his knee.

His right kneecap seemed to explode against Demona's assault, pain from the iron weapon shooting through him like a hot lance. He ground his teeth together, trying to hold in the scream as spasms racked his body and tears poured down his elfish face. Somehow, the cracking of his left kneecap a few moments later, as it too was pulverized by the mace, seemed to hurt even more.

"Oh come on, it was a _joke!_" he gasped.

Demona smiled and drew the knife, then dropped to one knee beside the wounded fay. "Yes, I know," she said sweetly. "And so is this!" Puck looked on in horror, trying to squirm free from his chains as she lifted the bottom folds of his jerkin, but his horror gave way to shrill screams as she set to work with the iron blade.

Pain more intense than the heat of a blue flame enveloped his being. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of indescribable anguish, Demona rose to her feet again, clutching the fay's testicles in her bloody talons. "What's wrong, Puck?" she mocked him. "You're not laughing. Don't you get it?" She received no answer but screaming, sobbing and frantic pleas for mercy.

Demona relished in his agony, savoring the moment like an after-dinner drink. Finally, she glanced absently at the ragged mounds of flesh in her hand, and then tossed them into the fire. "Ah well, jokes were never my forte, anyway," she said with a shrug.

Then she bent low over the trickster's broken form once more. "Oh, come off it," she said. "It can't be any worse than the pain of having your entire body put through a vise with the rising and setting of the sun. Imagine feeling that pain every single day and night of your life."

Puck tried to crawl away, pushing with his feet although every movement seemed to set his body afire. Demona watched him for a moment more, than grabbed him roughly by the hair. "No, I guess you couldn't," she said. "So this will have to suffice instead." She yanked his head back, exposed the neck, and then brought the blade of her knife across his throat.

Even if he were not barred by Oberon's edict, Puck still would not have been able to focus enough magical energy to close such a mortal wound inflicted by iron. All he could do was stare up in shock at the look of malicious joy that was etched upon Demona's face. He tried to speak, but the only sound his severed vocal cords could produce was a wet, rasping gurgle.

Demona grinned like a hatchling as she watched the vermilion ichor of Puck's essence gush onto the carpeting. Puck feebly tried to raise one hand, as if in his last desperate moments of his life he was willing to risk Oberon's wrath by summoning some sort of magic against his assailant. Then the trickster's body shuddered one final time, and he lay still.

The unseeing eyes stared up at Demona with that same look of horror, but now they were clouded with the gray mist of death. Demona laughed as the knife flashed in her hand, severing Puck's ears from his head.

"These will make a fine trophy, after they've spent some time in a pickling jar," the gargoyle spoke to herself as she slipped the bloodied slivers of flesh into a pouch at her belt. "But what to do with the rest of him?"

Normally, Demona would not have been adverse to helping herself to some other organs. Embalmed in the proper manner, they'd make potent ingredients in spells. But Demona had been keeping tabs on the Third Race down through the centuries, and the shifts in magical energy she'd felt in her last meditation led her to believe that Oberon had called his children back to Avalon. If Puck was still here in the mortal realm, then obviously it was because he'd defied Oberon's will. And if that were the case, no doubt Oberon had placed some sort of restriction on Puck's power for his servant's insolence.

Puck's organs could therefore be useless, and Demona didn't feel like wasting her time finding out. "The hell with it," she growled as she landed a swift kick to the trickster's battered corpse. He landed smack in the middle of the fireplace, and it didn't take long for the hungry flames to begin feasting on him. The ageless gargoyle watched with the same hunger as Puck's body was consumed. Finally, it was finished. Only bones and scraps of charred leather remained mixed in with the firewood.

"That was exquisite," she said, and let out a contented sigh. "If I were human, I'd be craving a cigarette right about now. If I were human…" Demona actually found herself laughing at the irony of her words. True, she was condemned to be what she hated while the sun was up, but the bastard fay responsible for this insult was finally dead.

Demona was so caught up in the moment that she didn't even notice the tingling in the small of her back, a sensation that, like the calm before the hurricane, always gave way to something more. Suddenly, a sharp pain gripped her belly, like hundreds of fiery daggers tearing through her entrails. The hot knives of pain killed whatever laughter remained inside her, and Demona filled her lungs with air and screamed…

…The azure gargoyle's eyes snapped open, and she convulsed violently beneath the silk bedclothes as the fire in her guts spread to encompass the rest of her body. Like some meek creature being punished by a cruel, old-world deity, her very being was rent asunder and reshaped in the span of a few seconds.

Her arms and legs pitched violently, the rapier-like talons on each hand and foot carving deep grooves into the mattress, until they split and were shortened into blunt, inferior fingers and toes. With a damp, sickening grinding noise, her wings and tail seemed to retract into her back and hips until they were no more. She clenched her fangs against the pain, trying not to sob as she felt them erode into pitiful human canines and incisors.

After what felt like an endless minute of anguish more unbearable than that which she'd inflicted upon Puck in her dream, it was finally complete. Where once a vengeful, blue-skinned gargoyle had lain in repose, a vengeful, pale-skinned human now occupied the bed.

In the dim light of her bedroom, Demona blinked several times, and ran her stubby human fingers over the jagged tears in her mattress. _Damn, another mattress ruined. I forgot to turn on the alarm again_. On the nights when she did sleep, Demona always tried to set her alarm to a few minutes before sunrise, so she could awaken and transform without destroying her bedding.

But she was forgetting to set it more and more these days. Had been forgetting a number of mundane things since she'd first found out about the formation of the Quarrymen. She would need to refocus her energies a bit. No doubt the Mattress Service was starting facetious rumors on why Dominique Destine had been ordering so many as of late. The last thing she wanted was to provide any sort of amusement for those filthy beasts.

She sighed and sat up on the bed, casting aside the shredded sheets. The spacious room was still quite dim, the Parisian blinds drawn against the growing light of dawn. Demona kept them drawn and slid off the mattress, planting her bare feet on the plush crimson of the carpet. She undid the belt on her loincloth, shimmied out of it, and then tossed it into the corner of the room. Her halter shortly followed it.

As Demona crossed the room to her dresser, the chill of the house overtook her, and she shivered as thousands of goose-bumps broke out all over her nude body. She hugged her arms before her breasts and rubbed her trembling biceps with her fingers. Usually, Demona did not keep the heat running in her home. As a gargoyle, there was no need for it. Only during the winter months, right before she went to bed, did she bother to turn it on, and then turned it off again right before leaving for the office. Turning it on last night was another thing she'd forgotten to do.

Demona stalked over to her dresser, still hugging her arms before her. She sighed again as she looked in the vanity mirror atop the dresser's polished mahogany surface, saw the raised markings that covered her shoulders, her arms, her breasts, her belly. As a gargoyle, she could stand naked in a blizzard if she wanted, and not feel a thing. By day, she couldn't even do that in a chilly room without breaking out all over in those hideous little bumps.

"Remind me again why humans consider themselves to be so superior," she said out loud to no one in particular. As she removed the jewelry from her head and body and set it on the dressertop, she snorted and thought again of Puck. Every time she found yet another negative aspect of being human, it always reminded her of that smug little bastard.

Since he'd cursed her, Demona had often dreamed about the myriad ways in which she'd make Puck suffer, if ever the fates were kind enough to make their paths cross again. The dreams got better and more elaborate every time. The one she'd just had was particularly satisfying. As Demona deposited the last of the jewelry on the dresser, she felt a sudden warmth, despite the chill. Someday, she would have to make her dream a reality…

As she entered her adjoining bathroom to start her shower, her eyes fell across something propped up against the wall by the bathroom door: a Quarryman hammer she'd taken from one of their ranks a few nights ago, after she'd killed him. Demona had been tinkering with it last night, trying to find a weakness in the weapon, something that might be used against the Quarrymen. For a moment, she imagined how the hammer's head might look painted with the Puck's brains. This brought a cold smile to her face, one that warmed her pale skin ever further.

She smiled as she entered the bathroom, turned on the lights and started the hot tap running. She had other priorities to handle while the sun was up. But maybe someday, in the course of searching for a way to get revenge upon humanity, she'd be able to give back to Puck just a dose of the pain that he'd bestowed upon her.

But for now, first things first. _The war goes on, _Demona said to herself as turned on the showerhead and stepped beneath the warm spray. _Another day, another battle…_

**Fin.**


End file.
